Pingu2

ok here are some piccies taken quickly in the dark - sorry they are rubbish! .. my car's not as dusty as it looks!! anyway - you can see that I have connected GPS/OBD-II via bluetooth and also GPRS mobile phone .. my car isn't really at 3rpm by the way - there's a bug in the software atm! The computer is in the glove box behind the passenger - need to tidy up some wires there (the wires are routed through the center tunnel past the handbrake/gearstick to the head unit/screen). You can see that I have the usb hub in the center tunnel box, where the phone holder goes.. all the bluetooth devices work fine with the box closed. At the moment the screen is just resting in its final err resting place - still looking for a 2003 satnav cubby!

Well known fact Red cars are the fastest.

God I wish my kinetix cats would get delivered so I can get this Nismo fitted!!

quick note to say that I now have internet on my car PC up and runnnig - in fact this is posted via it! Had to buy a different bluetooth adapter to get it running - the Belkin F8T012 is recommended for the purpose of car PC ! 8)

chilli - the forgotten colour

probably - but never got any tracking info! they just phoned me up to confirm what it was and what it was for and told me it would be delivered next day.

my nismo exhaust got delivered last week by UPS and the guy just took the amount due for customs in cash (he took cheques too but not cards)..

Alcantara(!) is quite nice really

well I will be getting Vortech when I get one (next year maybe) - seems the safest/easiest and one of the best options..

how about the ati procharger? I have read that it's good?.. although I think the oil in it needs changing every 3k miles which could get tiresome..

aww cant see the penguin too well - should have known those damn custards would get all the limelight! there was at least one nismo exhaust heard in this film yep!

mmmmmm can't wait to fit mine

nice

I am tentatively up for something in May

oh well - i was reasonably happy with 142 quid - not sure if you paid more or less but it seems reasonable to me!

well the exhaust arrived from Lee Parts in USA today - pretty speedy and good communication, can recommend them. HUGE box - will have to unpack the various bits to get them home as it was delivered to my work. btw Import fees totalled 142 quid - with no fudging of stated value of goods etc.. anyway - looks very nice

a PC - if it's my Z (just showing off still!)

will do - will be waiting till my hi flow cats arrive too - they should be shipped tomorrow - then getting them installed together and doing the plenum myself when I have time.. should I buy some ear plugs?!

welcome from a (the?!) fellow south east chilli and rays owner!

must say that the reception IS better on the original aerial; I have noticed an improvement recently having to put my original back on after someone pinched my stubby (not as exciting as it sounds!)

hmm - dont make the mistake I just made.. of looking up E8 on wikipedia.org it's a whole different universe..

my Nismo is now clearing customs and should be delivered tomorrow!

have just ordered a 3g phone too, along with Web'n'Walk plan from T-mobile - I had a burning need to be able to get weather forecasts on the move.. and have people be able to track me on google earth in realtime! This will also enable me to get traffic reports, internet radio and so on. went out for a drive this morning to test the system and it worked great - the bluetooth solar powered gps unit gets a fantastic signal seemingly wherever its placed (in fact it wasnt fixed and it flew off the dash onto the passenger seat and was still receiving 7 satellites..) and is able to communicate with the bluetooth adapter while its still locked up in the glove box thing. The PC is nearly silent with the glove box closed - certainly you can't hear it unless you sit still and listen. Have bought a 4 port usb hub which will go in the center phone cradle compartment. one problem I have atm is that Hibernate isn't really working for me - the gps doesnt reinitialise its COM ports correctly on resume.. so I have reverted to shutting down 45 sec after engine goes off - this adds about 15 seconds to the boot-time of the system but that's OK - I don't like to get in the car and dash off anyway (got to let it warm up a little!)

Well I have spent a few hours today taking the car apart, drilling holes in it and putting it back together - I now have a functioning car PC! I have replaced the BOSE head unit with a kenwood dpx501u double-din with AUX input wired up to the original BOSE speakers. I have placed a 7 inch touchscreen where the sat nav cubby is normally and routed the 3 cables (power, vga and usb(for touchscreen) down behind the radio where they join up with the power/ground/ignition wires and from there through the center tunnel and back into the glove box behind the passenger seat - I had to cut out a small hole in the glove box liner tray to pass the cables through into the glove box. The PC is an Epia SP13000 with slimine DVD drive, 40 GB hard drive, 512MB slimline RAM and all the normal ports; it's running windows xp and the shell I am using for the car PC is Centrafuse (this is software designed for a car touchscreen system). The PC is powered by an M2-ATX board, which is specifically produced for powering car PC and can handle up to 150W load. The M2-ATX supply can survive engine cranking and allows you to specify startup and shutdown delays (ie I have it set to start the PC 5 seconds after the ignition power comes on, and shut it down 45 seconds after it goes off - the PC then goes into hibernate ready to resume exactly where it was when you next start the car). The PC has a bluetooth usb adapter which connects to bluetooth GPS and OBDII widgets.. the GPS enables me to have touch screen sat nav (using Destinator, built into Centrafuse), and the OBDII enables me to monitor various engine parameters and diagnostics (it plugs into the OBDII port just below the fuel cap release button). I also have a USB wireless keyboard with a little joystick-mouse thing - don't intend to keep it in the car but it's their if needed. Finally there is wireless LAN via USB again - this will enable me to connect to home network and sync files and also to connect to local hotspots. I have taken a few pictures which I will post later. The part that's left to do is to fit the screen into the dash properly - atm its just lying in the empty space where the nav cubby should go! This is reliant on me finding a 2003 nav cubby..

oooh so orange!